Chapter 5: Let Me Die Free

Aurelia 

The healer was stunned when I asked to be discharged.

"Luna, your injuries are severe. Without your wolf, you are healing at a human pace. I strongly recommend you stay hospitalized for at least a week."

One more week in this forsaken pack? I couldn't stay a second longer. I shook my head firmly. "No. I want to be discharged immediately."

"As you wish, Luna," the healer said, though disagreement was written boldly across his face. "Let me inform the Alpha."

"No need to bother him. I'm sure he's very busy," I replied softly.

Soon after, I was discharged. I limped alone through the hospital hallways, my body protesting every step. As I passed a private ward, a familiar laugh drifted through the air, and my gaze caught on the glass pane of the door before I could stop it.

Thalia was having her prenatal check-up. She lay back in the bed in the latest couture, her hair perfectly styled, her makeup flawless, the diamonds at her throat and ears throwing off light like fallen stars. Travis held her hand, his eyes fixed on the monitor, full of a love I recognized too well. My parents stood close, unable to look away from the screen. Even Jordan — always so grim — was brushing away happy tears at the sight of the pup on the display.

They looked like one happy family. I was not part of it. I never had been, and I never would be. The only difference now was that the truth of it no longer hurt.

I looked at them one last time. "Farewell," I whispered, and I knew it for what it was — the last time I would ever lay eyes on them.

I reached my bedroom and began to pack. I couldn't take much, so I filled a small bag with essentials — plain, comfortable clothes, a few toiletries. I left the gowns, the heels, the jewellery exactly where they hung. They had belonged to the pack Luna, and I was not her anymore.

One by one, I unclasped the rings and the mating bracelet Travis had given me and laid them on the dresser, and with each piece I set down I felt lighter, as if I were shedding a crown I had never truly been allowed to wear. I was just Aurelia now. And the new Aurelia didn't need much.

I counted the cash in my wallet. One hundred and forty-seven dollars. Pathetic. I came from a family worth millions. I had been Luna of one of the richest packs in the region. I had built this pack on my own sweat — and our accounts were joint, so the moment I touched a cent, Travis would know exactly where to find me. These few crumpled bills were the only thing in the world that was truly mine.

I walked out through the packhouse for the last time. Omegas hurried through their chores; warriors held their posts. The pack ran like a well-drilled colony, every wolf bent to its task. I passed through all of it, and not one of them spared me a glance. I was a ghost — an empty space where a Luna used to stand.

Their neglect was, ironically, my salvation. I crossed the pack gates and no one stopped me. No one so much as noticed I was gone.

Once I would have shifted and run. Now I walked into the trees on two legs, like the human I had become without Coco. A surge of adrenaline held the worst of the pain at bay as I pushed forward. I had to reach the Moon Goddess Temple before my absence was noticed. With Thalia keeping him occupied, Travis likely wouldn't think of me until nightfall — longer, if he stayed in her bed.

Far off, a howl rose and held, and I froze mid-step, every nerve screaming that the mate bond would flicker and give me away. It didn't. Not yet. But the bond was still whole, and every hour it stayed intact was another hour they could find me at the end of it. I forced my ruined legs faster.

By the time darkness fell, a sickening throb had spread low in my abdomen, and beneath it came the old familiar ache through the bond — Travis, with my sister. Once, that would have unmade me. Tonight I was almost grateful for it. Every hour he spent on Thalia was an hour bought for my escape.

I clicked on my little torch and kept moving. My torn side had gone stiff and hot, pulling at every step like a hook. Breaking the bond was my only chance; once it was severed, Travis could never track me through it again.

"I am proud of you. You are the best human a wolf could ever be paired with. Aurelia, you are stronger than you think." Coco's voice surfaced from memory, and I held onto it like a rope.

Aurelia the Luna had begged. Aurelia the ghost would walk. Whatever waited at that temple — even death — it was mine to choose. And choosing was the one thing they had never let me do.

Time crawled. I was emptied out, swaying on my feet, when my toe caught a root and I went down hard onto my knees in the dirt. For a moment I had nothing left. It would be so easy to lie here and let the cold take me.

Then I lifted my head — and there it was through the trees. The Moon Goddess Temple. White marble and gold, glowing soft against the dark, a promise of light and mercy. A strange warmth spread through the hollow places inside me, and I smiled. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt free.

Two priestesses came running and lifted me to my feet.

"Child, what happened to you?" the elder asked, her voice gentle — that motherly warmth I had never once heard from my own mother.

"I'm fine. I just... I need to break the mate bond," I whispered.

"Dear, you can barely stand. Breaking a bond takes immense strength." She drew a breath near my skin, and her face hardened with understanding. "And without your wolf spirit... severing a mate bond is almost impossible."

"I need to break the mate bond. And the family bond," I said, my voice cracking but holding.

Both priestesses gasped.

"It cannot be done," the elder breathed. "Severing both at once, in your state — that is not a rite, child. That is suicide. You are asking us to be the ones who kill you."

"Then let it be suicide." I closed my hands around hers. "I would rather die free at the Goddess's altar than live one more day as theirs."

She searched my face for a long moment, and whatever she found there made her go very still. She traded a glance with the younger one, gave a single sorrowful nod, and folded my cold hands into the warmth of her own.

"Then come, child," she breathed. "What we must do will hurt more than anything they ever did to you. Pray to the Goddess you are strong enough to live through it."